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from the ought-to-be-enough-for-anybody dept.
Jason Plautz writes at The Atlantic that the more the world's population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment. "And yet the climate-change benefits of family planning have been largely absent from any climate-change or family-planning policy discussions," says Jason Bremner of the Population Reference Bureau. Even as the population passes 7.2 billion and is projected by the United Nations to reach 10.9 billion by the end of the century, policymakers have been unable—or unwilling—to discuss population in tandem with climate change. Why? Because "talking about population control requires walking a tightrope." writes Plautz. "It can all too easily sound like a developed world leader telling people in the developing world that they should stop having children—especially because much of the population boom is coming from regions like sub-Saharan Africa." Just look at what happened to Hillary Clinton in 2009, when as secretary of State she acknowledged the overpopulation issue during a discussion with Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh. Clinton praised another panelist for noting "that it's rather odd to talk about climate change and what we must do to stop and prevent the ill effects without talking about population and family planning."
A 2010 study looked at the link between policies that help women plan pregnancies and family size and global emissions. The researchers predicted that lower population growth could provide benefits equivalent to between 16 and 29 percent of the emissions reduction needed to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius warming by 2050, the warning line set by international scientists. But the benefits also come through easing the reduced resources that could result from climate change. The U.N. IPCC report notes the potential for climate-related food shortages, with fish catches falling anywhere from 40 to 60 percent and wheat and maize taking a hit, as well as extreme droughts. With resources already stretched in some areas, the IPCC laid out the potential for famine, water shortages and pestilence. Still, the link remains a "very sensitive topic," says Karen Hardee, "At the global policy level you can't touch population … but what's been heartening is that over the last few years it's not just us, but people from the countries themselves talking about this."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 03 2014, @12:08AM
the oligarchy you detest is not a result of real capitalism, which encourages competition on a level playing field.
monopolies occur when the power of the state gets involved in markets. even something as innocuous as a broadcasting license will affect the balance in favor of the license recipient, making it harder for competitors to rise and keep monopolistic tendencies in check.
where it gets ugly is when political influence is bought and sold. this is not a flaw of capitalism, as corporations can only buy what is being offered. it is the corrupt government officials that offer influence for sale in the first place that are the root cause of the monopolies we experience today. corporations will lobby, as do churches and other groups, but we place our trust in public officials to resist lobbyists and act in the best interest of their constituents.
public officials are only human, and humans are corrupt and greedy so its folly to assume that we could expect such honor. that's why the only solution is to keep the absolute power of the state to a minimum so that there is little power that could be offered for sale by corrupt officials.
capitalism is the source of much of the comforts that modern society takes for granted, and level competition keeps prices low and wages high.
turnover of labor is wasteful and costly so despite the rhetoric from the left about greedy capitalist corporations exploiting workers, if that were really the case everyone would be working for minimum wage. the real reason for minimum wage workers is that they aren't worth more than that. you might say that's not fair but you'd be wrong; what's not fair is the government fixing the price of labor so that poor people can't get their first low (or no) pay job and work their way up the ladder of success. the left is so obsessed with punishing rich people, they're blind to the unintended consequences of their policies on poor people that they purport to care about.